I was blessed to received a couple of nice gifts for Christmas from my co-workers yesterday. Two books I'd had on my Christmas list for a while now. As a bonus, my boss also sent me a nice wine cork with a handle that resembled a bunch of grapes. Very cute!
I live and work in Vancouver, so public transit is cool to use. It's an outdoors kind of town, so everyone is running, cycling, or if like me you don't take exercise that seriously, taking the bus.
Anyway, I leave work with my lunch bag containing all my new shiny gifts. I get on the next bus and travel into town to get my train connection. It was only when I arrived downtown that I realised I'd left my lunch bag of gifts at the bus stop!
My initial reaction was one of despair. An overreaction admittedly, but a reaction all the same. My perspective was a feeling I'd let down the people who'd loving bought (and shipped) those gifts to me. My next thought was 'how stupid could I be!'. Both of these thoughts are neither useful or self-serving.
I called a co-worker to go check the bus stop to see if my gifts were still there. They weren't.
When I got home I told my wife what had happened. Turns out she'd had a far more eventful and important day than I'd had. It also turned out that she'd actually bought me the very same books for Christmas! So I'd lost and then gained in the space of 2 hours!
When the dust settled, I finally settled on a perspective I'd like to keep. Its is one where I hold no grudge toward the person who took my gifts. They now have two cool books to keep for themselves this Christmas, or to wrap and re-gift to someone else. They may be less fortunate than me and need to sell those books for food, which would be fine by me.
You see, giving doesn't have to be conventional. It can be through a series of unfortunate events the universe throws your way. Maybe I was meant to leave those gifts there? There is a theory that our lives are already mapped out for us from the moment we are born. Maybe this minor event was always going to happen?
The lesson we can all take away is this; what perspective on giving can you see this Christmas? There are many to choose from and we all have that choice. Choice gives us freedom, shifts our state of mind and makes us feel the way we want to feel.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Warmly,
Matt.
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